FLUSHING, NY, October 15, 2007 – Brush with Nature, an installation by artist Barbara Roux that focuses on habitat changes in New York’s remaining wild landscapes, will be on display at the Queens College Art Center from Monday, November 5 through Wednesday, December 21. On Thursday, November 8, the public is invited to a free gallery talk by the artist from 5 to 6 pm. A reception will follow until 8 pm. For more information, please visit http://qcpages.qc.cuny.edu/Library/art/calendar.html.

Co-sponsored by the Department of Biology and by the School of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Queens College, the exhibition continues Queens

“Vines Conceal” 2006, color photograph

College’s participation in Focus the Nation, a national educational initiative aimed at raising awareness about climate change and global warming.

Barbara Roux is an ecology-based artist and conservationist whose work is influenced by her efforts to protect habitats and record incidents in natural history. She is inspired by her father (a pharmacologist who did research in the Amazon), her own stays in wilderness areas around the world, and her interactions with scientists on plant-related research, natural history and contemporary art. Her installations/pieces employ symbolism and anthropomorphism to evoke a sense of mystery, freshness and recognition, drawing the viewer in by metaphor.

Living and working in an area of Long Island that borders vulnerable New York State parkland, Roux creates narrative reactions to issues of habitat survival. Her installations combine photographic images of ephemeral sites and events, symbolic assemblages of elements from the native habitat, and texts written on natural site fragments. The results are contemporary, highly personal pieces that show viewers the delicate beauty of our dwindling habitats.

“The environment of the forest, meadow, seashore and wetland is a powerful and little-appreciated resource to understanding our human world,” says Roux. “Like all structured communities, the wilderness is in a search for survival. It is my hope that through my work people may become interested in the mysteries that are inherent in wild places. From interest, a desire to protect may follow.”

Astute, judicious and deftly compelling, Roux turns cautionary tales into poetic visual statements. With her diverse background, interests and training, she exemplifies the environmental activist-artist. She received a BA in Communications and Creative Art in 1979 from the State University of New York at Old Westbury, where she studied with Latin American artist Luis Camnitzer, who helped her refine her narrative and conceptual styles. Later, she studied with the minimalist artist Robert Morris at Hunter College, CUNY, earning an MFA in Combined Media Art in 1985.

“Transit of the Moon," 2007, carved sassafras wood

Roux has shown her work at museums, universities and non-profit spaces. In New York City, her installations have been displayed at the Alternative Museum, Newhouse Center for Contemporary Art, Wave Hill, The Front Room Gallery, A.I.R. Gallery and Just Above Midtown/Downtown. Other venues include the Hillwood Art Museum, Greenvale, NY; Real Art Ways, Hartford, CT; Silvermine Guild, New Canaan, CT; Islip Art Museum, East Islip, NY; Catskill Center for Conservation and Development, Arkville, NY; Natural World Museum, San Francisco, CA; Heckscher Museum, Huntington, NY; and the Discovery Museum in Bridgeport, CT. She has also had shows in Germany, Korea and England.

Roux’s projects have been reported in The New York Times, New York magazine, Art New England, Arts magazine, Sculpture magazine, Annals of Earth, Fifth Season magazine, and elsewhere. Roux is co-author of the book Opaque Glass (with Coco Gordon, Water Mark Press, 1985) and frequently presents to environmental groups such as the Audubon Society and the North Fork Environmental Council on Long Island. In addition to Brush With Nature, her work can be seen at Brenda Taylor Gallery through November 10th, 2007, and at the Lyman Allyn Art Museum in New London, CT through February 25, 2008.

Photographs as well as biographical and sales information are available upon request.

Visitors to the Barbara Roux exhibition may also want to see the Spirit and Power in African Art exhibition at the Godwin-Ternbach Museum on campus (October 1 – December 15, 2007). For information, please visit www.qc.cuny.edu/godwin_ternbach.

The Queens College Art Center is a successor, since 1987, of the Queens College Art Library gallery founded in 1960. In more than 200 exhibitions to date, the Art Center has shown masters like Alice Neel, Joseph Cornell, and Elizabeth Catlett, and introduced scores of artists from around the globe and emerging artists who later went on to major careers. The Art Center focuses on modern and contemporary art, presenting the works of both emerging and established artists in diverse media, in programming expressive of the best of the art of our time. Art Center exhibitions support the educational and cultural objectives of Queens College. The shared goal of the Queens College Art Center and of the Godwin-Ternbach Museum at Queens College is to provide the means for participating in and upholding a democratic society through learning, adaptation, and critical thinking.